No Hopey-Changey Stuff Here

19Dec

the Obama effect was not ephemeral anymore, no longer reducible to what had once been mocked as that ‘hopey-changey stuff… It could be measured in wars stopped and started; industries saved, restructured or reregulated; tax cuts extended; debt levels inflated; terrorists killed; the health-insurance system reimagined; and gay service members who could walk in uniform with their partners. It could be seen in the new faces who waited hours to vote and in the new ways campaigns are run. America debated and decided this year: history would not record Obama’s presidency as a fluke.